My name is Douglas McConnaughey.
 
I'm a professional journalist from Boise, Idaho, and I have to say that Pharmacia & Upjohn has covered my time to be here and paid my expenses to Washington today. I experienced severe hair loss over the course of the last seven years.  During the last year, I experienced a lot of hair loss, and in fact, the complete back of my head was -- there wasn't any hair and I had a severe receding hair line.  The few hairs that were left between those two spots were gray.
I'm a single dad.  I have a second grade son, a first grade daughter that I'm raising by myself.  At the beginning of last year, the school year -- well, first of all, I have to say I live in a very small ranching community outside of Boise.  Most of the other fathers at school are a lot younger than I am and haven't experienced any hair loss yet.  I noticed how impacting it was to my son at the beginning of the school year when I had him on my shoulders and he said, geez, Dad, it's slick back here.  So, I paid attention to that.
I host a daily news magazine called P.M. Idaho.  We cover home health, hearth, pocketbook issues a lot, and what kind of topics you would normally consider around the water cooler.  Of course, Rogaine has been a topic for a lot of people.  Does it work?  Does it not work?  Of course, we have heard all the other claims of other products for years.  So, a lot of the people in the public wonder if it really does work. I'm a cynic naturally.  I spent 27 years as a newspaper, television, radio, and wire service reporter, and believe you me, I didn't believe it would work.
So, we came up with an idea to have an on-air test.  Myself, our sports anchor, and our on-air psychologist all agreed to start using Rogaine.  That was seven months ago.  During that process, we also interviewed some of the clinical assessment staff from Pharmacia & Upjohn.
I have to say to you that Rogaine exceeded all of my expectations, and I don't say that lightly.  I tell you the three areas that they produced results for me. One, as you can see, the top of my head -- I had significant and excellent hair regrowth, and it's very full. The second area was that my receding hairline came back.  It reestablished that hairline and came to the front of my head.  It isn't completed yet, but I have hair on the front of my head. And the third area, very surprisingly to me, was that the hair that came back was the hair that I had when I was in my early 20s.  It's darker, it's softer, and it's fuller. I promised my audience that I would report back to them factually and honestly as I'm doing to you today, and that's what I told them.  I have hair and it's as a result of that. At the end of the school year, I was with my son at a back-to-school night and so he could see all the other dads there.  He looked up to me and he said, gee, Dad, you're just like all the other dads.  You have hair now. 
When you consider 2 percent and 5 percent minoxidil for men, I know that one size doesn't fit all and sometimes another dose is what's necessary.  Rogaine works for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it's available and I would recommend that.

My name is John Thompson. 

I'm from Orange County, California.  I'm a construction management consultant.
I'd like to take just a moment to thank the committee for the opportunity today to talk briefly about Rogaine and also to Pharmacia & Upjohn for sponsoring my trip here to Washington.  My only hope is that my second trip will be longer than 18 hours in duration and it won't be quite as humid.
I've been a successful Rogaine program participant for about two years.  I first noticed -- and it kind of hit me over the head -- that I was going to be a product of next-generation genetics when I went to visit my father four years ago in Reno, Nevada.  He had suffered male pattern baldness as early as age 40, and he was kind of chiding me because at the ripe old age of 37, it was the downhill pull to 40.
I brought a couple of photographs which you probably may not be able to see because I'm far away from the table, but my dad here at age 42 on the left began to suffer a receding hairline which began to progress noticeably and dramatically into his 40s and also into his 50s.  My dad at the ripe old age of 62 currently has substantial male pattern baldness in the front area of his scalp all the way to the middle and back section.
Upon returning from my visit with my dad, I was in denial about, A, getting older and, B, going bald.  About a year later, I had a photograph taken which is referenced here.  I think probably the doctors in the front row can see it much more clearly.  I began to suffer that pain of genetics that I mentioned earlier by hair loss around the temple area and also in the front.  The picture also dramatically illustrates that it was receding also where my dad had experienced the same situation, towards the center of my scalp because the part line of my hair was very irregular and it was very unfull.
I went to a series of doctors for various consultations to see what options were available to me, and finally I went onto the Rogaine program.  My dermatologist told me it would take approximately one year of daily treatments, which I naturally committed to.  At the time it was a prescription medication.
Three months into the program, I am very happy to say I began to see very positive results.  My dermatologist told me that if hair loss was beginning to decline, that there would be less hair in styling products such as my comb and in my styling brush in the morning, and I did notice that.
Certainly the most dramatic result, though, was in the fifth month, and that as the telltale signs of very beginning hair growth along the front of the scalp.  It was really great because I knew it was working. 
One of the tests a doctor had told me to do was to take my hand and actually pull the hair back and if you were lucky enough to start experiencing the growth, you'd notice little, little, small, practically hairless -- well, my weren't that hairless -- or colorless -- excuse me, but small little growth lines along the front of the scalp.  They were pretty much brown.  They weren't really colorless which also was fairly exciting.
They were like kids, though.  They were going in every different direction and they weren't really doing what I wanted them to do until they grew out actually longer. 
In fact, this morning when I was applying the Rogaine, I did the test anyway, realizing I'd be testifying before the committee this morning, and I did the test again.  They weren't short.  They were significantly longer.
I'm very satisfied with the results of the minoxidil that I've taken currently to date in the last two years, and I'm hopeful that the committee and the FDA will react favorably towards the 5 percent solution.
There's varying results with Rogaine today.  Some people plateau, such as myself I believe, with the 2 percent.  Some people have marginal or negligible results.  Some people it takes longer.  I would hope that with the 5 percent solution, those who have experienced perhaps a longer time line might accelerate, people such as myself who have maybe plateaued in their success might be able to get even greater success.
I know today you have a lot of people coming up and discussing Rogaine, people, doctors, scientists, who know a lot more technical information that I do.  But speaking strictly as a consumer, I can sum up Rogaine with two words:  Rogaine works.  Thank you very much.

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